They say that a corporate life is meant to be professional, and only the ones, who have the strength to keep their emotions far away from their professional life, can climb the ladder of success. I cannot say that I disagree; however, I intend to climb only as far as my emotions allow me to. I never intended to work like a robot and with robots. I have worked with robots (of course, figuratively speaking) and humans, both. Saying that I almost died with boredom while working with the robots would not be an exaggeration. Nodding only when required, asking only what’s expected, talking only in the most professional tone are a few of the commonly known traits. Of course, the scene changes once you are considered a shark, and then you may speak your mind; everybody is bound to listen to every pearl of wisdom of your mind. I have a problem with that sort of behavior. I do not hold anything against it because I know that sometimes, not maintaining a distance with one’s employees could harm an employer and eventually, their business. I am only stating that I have a hard time sticking to the rules of treating people based on their ranks, positions, and titles. Therefore, I create memories wherever I go. Mostly, I have been lucky to be surrounded by the people of my likes.

For those of you, who do not know me, I am a software engineer, which means working on different projects that last ranging from a few months to a few years. I worked on my last project for about 3 years, and in that time, I got to know some of the best people. My teammates changed from time to time during the course of this project; however, every new addition to our little family has been an excellent one. Before being released from this project, they asked me to write a post about them. They are loyal readers of my blog — whether because I was their project leader or they really liked those, only they may know. I have been thinking about the best way to pay my tribute to the times that we spent together, and finally, the daily prompt of the day, precious, gave me an idea. I would share a few qualities about each of them in this post.

At the time of release, we were four in the team: Adivya, Anurag, Siddharth, and I. Adivya is the funny one. If you want to have a good laugh — a real one, not the forced one — he is your guy. He knows how to be respectful, and he is always in high spirits. At the same time, he is TOO ambitious, which is good for him. Being young and enthusiastic about one’s career are always fair attributes to have. Our office was very far from his home and all the major party spots of the city, yet he was always ready to drive us to the place that we chose for team outing and back to the office. He never hesitated to drop me home when it got late. His care was real and not a pretentious one. He has a contagious smile that can eliminate stress from the most burdened day. Anurag is a guy who knows what he wants and remains faithful to his beliefs. Even though he has friends who can drink like a fish, he did not touch alcohol because he made a promise to himself to stay away from it(not that he judges people who drink, it is something that he is not attracted to). Like Adivya, he is very caring and nice. He is an introvert and takes time in opening up — not as much as Siddharth, but let’s talk about him  later. Respecting others and genuinely helping his friends are two of his other awesome traits. I know that I can trust him with my life without even thinking. He is my most treasured reader because he gives me very valuable advice on how to improve my writing. Last but not the least, Siddharth — imagine drum rolls because he is quite a guy — is a unique personality anyone would ever meet. Mostly he is lost in his own world, but when he comes out of it for a little air, he is amazing. He is talented and funny; however, he doubts himself too much. Laziness and not believing in himself are two of his most vicious companions. Although I wonder if he will survive in the current line of the corporate world, I am sure he’ll excel in the world of photography — that is, if he actually picks himself up to click a picture and maintain his Instagram profile. He is caring in his own weird way, but he is a good person, for sure. P.S. you should watch him when he stares and when he is in panic mode because his code is not working.

There are a few words that my team shared with me on the day of release, which meant the world to me. I want to document these here so that if I don’t lose the WordPress, then I could remember these forever. I forgot who said what, but quoting all of those thoughtful words, here:

“We have learned a lot from you. You have taught us how to survive in the corporate world keeping stress at arm’s length. Because of you, we know that we should not bother when others judge us.”

There is one particularly cute comment that they said to me, which I don’t know whether to take positively or negatively,

“You are too good for IT.”

At last, their word of encouragement for my writing,

“You should write a book. Don’t worry about whether it will sell or not; we shall be your personal publicists and would sell all your books in a blink.”

I feel blessed that I got the opportunity to know them, not just as my colleagues, but above that, as real breathing humans — not robots.
This post is in response to the daily post prompt: Precious